


Catch the Wind (We're Gonna See It Spin)

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-02
Updated: 2007-09-02
Packaged: 2019-02-13 13:44:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12985314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Dean knew he should never be thankful for Sam getting hurt, but it was hard not to think that way when he had the sweet dark-haired nurse bent over the side of a gurney in an empty hospital room.





	Catch the Wind (We're Gonna See It Spin)

**Author's Note:**

> For jellicle 
> 
> beta'ed by rinkle, emgrace4 and manzanas_verdes

 

\--- --- ---

**Emporia, Kansas - 1999**

Dean knew he should never be thankful for Sam getting hurt, but it was hard not to think that way when he had the sweet dark-haired nurse bent over the side of a gurney in an empty hospital room.

Luckily Sam’s injuries were explainable this time; Dean was only there because Sam had managed to get knocked on his ass attempting intramural soccer in gym. Dad would have given Sam an ice pack and sent him to bed, but the school nurse wasn’t letting them out of her sight until she escorted Sam’s lanky teenage frame into the back of an ambulance. Dean’s boss at the garage wasn’t too pleased with him having to leave early either, but they needed a guardian for Sam before Child Services got involved and Dad was two states away tracking a nasty chupacabra with Bobby. Dean was planning on giving Sam shit about the whole fiasco until _she_ walked into the room. Sam’s nurse, Carmen, was a walking wet dream as far as Dean was concerned, five and a half feet of soft curves and tanned skin and, judging by the pillow clutched in Sam’s lap, both brothers were operating on the same wavelength.

She was just a nurse in training really, working at the hospital for experience credits towards her license and more qualified to deliver ice chips and aspirin than to operate on someone, but the Winchesters could care less. Less experience made her less likely to ask questions about the lack of medical history for Samuel Stoneham and the myriad of scars already decorating the teenager’s skin like a roadmap of the monsters they’d faced crisscrossing the continent. Besides, ‘in training’ meant ‘not getting paid’ and that just made it easier for Dean to sweet talk his way into her pants.

If you asked Sam though, it would be the other way around. He saw the way Carmen’s eyes lit up when Dean walked in with grease smudged cheeks and his work coveralls unbuttoned down to his waist revealing the threadbare Zeppelin shirt underneath. Sam knew enough about predators to know which one was truly the prey here.

They both knew where this was headed, ducking out into the hallway to discuss Sam’s ‘condition’ like he hadn’t just gotten a bloody nose. Dean grinned in success as she backed him into an empty room, leaving barely enough time for the door to swing shut before she had the tips of his fingers in her mouth and his coveralls pushed to his knees. Carmen’s mouth was wet and hot across his ear.

“Fuck you taste good.”

He turned her around and pressed her hips into the metal edge of the gurney, earning a hiss from her mouth, his hands pushing soft cotton scrubs down far enough to spread her knees wide and _taste_ from front to back. His palms pressed flat against the back of her thighs leaving fingerprints in grease stains behind her knees, her scent a wet smear across his mouth before he sank into deep, slick heat stealing away all the breath in her body.

“Fuck.”

Dean grinned. “Yeah I’m getting there, honey.”

Carmen’s shirt was wrinkled, lipstick striped across Dean’s neck above the edge of his t-shirt when they finally got back to Sam. The doctor giving him the once-over squinted a disapproving glance at her before settling his gaze on Dean’s post-coital grin. “Your brother has a lot of scars for a sixteen year old, Mr. Stoneham. Do you have an explanation for these?”

By the time they got out of the hospital, Carmen’s shift had ended. She left her number with the nurse at the front desk, a smirk slipping across the older woman’s face as she handed it to Dean with a flourish. Dean tucked the slip of paper into his pocket on his way out the door.

The 'Stonehams' high tailed it out of the state the next day, catching up with Dad just outside Texas. Dean lost Carmen's number in a laundromat two states over, Sam’s tighty whities spinning across the glass front of the washer as the water dissolved the paper in his pocket.

 

 

\--- --- ---

**Garden City, Kansas – 2002**

Dean wasn’t one for remembering faces. He had a string of one night stands starting on the east coast, bee lining it to the west and back again; waitresses, bartenders, librarians. A hundred forgettable faces and just his luck to bump into the one face that was burned into the lining of his brain. Of course ‘bumped’ was a relative term, considering that he was unconscious when they wheeled him into the hospital, blood still dripping hot red from the gash torn into the soft skin of his belly. When he opened his eyes the first time he thought he was dreaming. Carmen, however, was either a really good actress or seriously had no idea who he was because she didn’t hesitate or flinch once as she stitched a neat line of black across his ribcage.

It was stupidity on his own part that he ended up there in the first place, adrenaline rush under his skin urging him harder and faster on the downward spiral away from both Sam and his father; too caught up in their own crusades to follow him on the path to destruction. Caught in a cycle of fight or fuck with no common sense in his brain or at his side to keep him from running full speed at everything that dropped into the radius of his sight.

When she was finished, Carmen pressed a clean bandage down over his stitches, wide strips of medical tape adhering gauze to skin. He couldn’t read her, brown eyes flickering either recognition or sympathy as they swept across his face. “Got to be more careful. You won’t always be lucky enough to have me around to put you back together.”

Dean’s mouth twitched up at the corner. “All the king’s horses…”

Carmen leaned closer, soft fingers against his collarbone. “And just a girl with a needle and thread to put Humpty back on the wall.” She pressed a kiss against his cheek before pulling back to look at his face. “Kind of ruins the fairy tale. Now rest, nurse’s orders. I’ll be back later in my shift to check on you.”

Dean smiled, words like thank you on the tip of his tongue but Carmen was already out the door leaving him to sleep through a drug-induced haze.

Carmen was true to her word, checking in on him between all of her other patients. Dean slept off and on, hours or maybe days passing under the watchful eye of a girl he knew once upon a time. He let the drugs work through his blood stream and watched her through heavy lidded eyes - so much the same girl as before but so different as the women here now.

At some point in the night, in the darkness of his room with light filtering through from the hall and the moon in the window, Dean felt the bed dip beside him. When he opened his eyes Carmen was watching him, quiet concentration like she could make his chest rise and fall with only the wish of her mind. His throat was dry with sleep, creaking out rough edges as he tried to speak.

“Car..Carmen? What’s … why’re you here?”

Carmen closed her eyes, pale shadows across her face from the trees grown up tall around the hospital. “Where’s your brother?”

Dean tried to sit up, thinking better of the movement when pain shot white hot through his side. He fell back down to the pillow, teeth clenched tightly. “Sam. Sam is in college. Off to Stanford to make something of himself. Something more than he’ll be with his family.”

Dean felt the edge of anger curling up in his belly, the tension coiling and adrenaline urge pumping. He had been still for too long, reality catching up with him while he slept. Carmen opened her eyes again, fingers closing around his wrist where it lay on the bed, absently turning the plastic ID bracelet snapped there. “So I’m guessing you’re not Dean Stoneham. And I know you’re not the Michael Silverstone that it says on your insurance card and your medical records. And that’s mostly just because you’re not 45 with a heart condition.”

Dean interrupted, free hand resting on the curve of her shoulder, the heat of her skin bleeding through the cotton scrubs. “I can explain. It’s just… complicated.”

Carmen turned toward him, one leg up on the bed and the other on the floor - pulling closer and pulling away at the same time. “Well un-complicate it, because in the morning, when the doctor comes in and checks on you, he’s going to see that you’re not who you say you are. And then he’s going to call the police.”

She swallowed, bottom lip bitten white between her teeth. “I want to help you. I have no idea _why_ , but there it is. Just give me a reason to trust you.”

Dean pulled his hand back, rubbing it across his face. He started to speak several times, aborted thoughts left unsaid on the tip of his tongue. “The thing is… you probably _shouldn’t_ trust me.”

Carmen nodded, standing up from the bed and turning her back to him. “All right, let me just get a wheelchair and we’ll go.”

Dean was confused, mouth open to protest but his brain took a second to catch up, middle of the night still settling hazy over his thoughts. “What… Where’re we going?”

Carmen pushed a wheelchair up to the side of the bed, moving blankets out of the way so she could transfer him into the chair. “We are going to my apartment.”

Dean shook his head, grabbing her hands to stop them from moving him around. “Wait a second, wait. Why am I going to your apartment?”

The look on Carmen’s face was incredulous, like she couldn’t believe he hadn’t figured it out. “Well, I can’t let you stay here unless you want to end up in jail for insurance fraud and I can’t send you out on the street when you can barely sit up on your own. So the only solution is for you to go to my apartment. At least that way I can make sure you don’t get an infection while your cuts are healing.”

He was confused, unable to do much more than allow her to move him around. He felt like an idiot, dressed in nothing more than a hospital gown and the white socks he had on when he came in, but every time he tried to move his side felt like it was splitting open. “Christ, are you always this stubborn, woman? Frickin’ kidnapping me from my bed in the middle of the night like I’m some kind of invalid. I can take care of _myself_.”

She ignored him, blanket tucked in around his knees and a pile of clothes in his lap, whatever was left of them after the werewolf had finished trying to rip his insides out. The doors of the hospital slipped open silently, cold air gusting in around the edge of the blanket over his knees.

Dean could see the Impala, driven to the hospital by whatever EMT had found him bleeding out on the side of the road. Her black paint shone under the pale gaze of moonlight, parked in the distance, just out of reach. Carmen pushed him across the strip of hot top reserved for dropping off patients, steering the chair easily through the night. She stopped next to a beat up old Honda Civic, blue paint fading translucent and a cracked taillight sparkling under the fluorescent bulb of the parking lot lights.

“No way. I’m not riding in this piece of … whatever when my car’s right over there.”

Carmen crouched down, sliding right into his personal space with a smirk on her mouth. “Are you going to let me drive your car, Dean?”

“Fuck no!” Dean pushed on the arm of the wheelchair, trying to get up and over to his car, get to his dad and away from overprotective women. Unfortunately, trying to move on his own only resulted in pain that blindsided him, a brief tint of blackness flickering around the edge of his vision. His choices were quickly shrinking to going with Carmen or a night in a jail cell.

“All right then. For Christ’s sake, Dean, I don’t think your manhood will be forever tainted by one five-minute trip in my car.”

Dean shut his mouth at that comment, gritting his teeth as the stitches in his side pulled at tender skin when she helped him slide onto the front seat of the car. A necklace of brightly colored flowers dangled from the rearview mirror, silk petals fading slightly from the daily onslaught of sunshine.

“You get lei’d recently, Carmen?” Dean quipped, smirking through the lingering ache in his ribs.

She smacked him across the back of his head sharply and rolled her eyes as she threw the car into first with a clash of gears. “Watch your mouth or I’ll leave you in the parking lot for the cops to pick up in the morning.”

The grin slipped from Dean’s mouth as quickly as it had appeared. “Yes, ma’am.”

 

 

\--- --- ---

It took another week laid up in Carmen’s one bedroom apartment for Dean to move around without a noticeable wince at the stretch in his side. One bedroom of space didn’t leave much extra room, especially when it came to sleeping arrangements. Carmen’s odd hours often left Dean to wake up with the soft slide of black hair across his chest, blue scrubs still covering her petite body where she had crashed into sleep as soon as she laid down. Once he could move without reliving the sharp tug of claws through his skin, it wasn’t much of a surprise that Dean started working his way toward more than just sleeping with Carmen.

He kissed her tentatively at first, using thanking her as an excuse as he held the weight of his body above her on the bed. She arched under his tongue, responding to the heat of his mouth across her skin with held breath and a visible shudder. He slipped calloused hands under the washed-soft cotton of her hospital scrubs, fingertips mapping her ribs and palms cupping the weight of her breasts as if he would memorize her with his hands.

He flipped her on top when his path changed to the south, baring her legs to his hands as he coaxed her up and over his mouth, tongue pressing up into soaking wet heat until she cried out with hands bracing her body up against the wall above the headboard.

Dean cradled her back against his thighs when he finally slid home, feet flat against the mattress for leverage as he thrust up, hands bracketing her hips to hold her in place for the force of him.

No one came looking for Dean Stoneham or Michael Silverstone, mysteriously disappeared from the hospital in Garden City while the nursing staff was occupied with an emergency call to the ICU. Dean Winchester lost himself in soft curves and the unquestioning gaze of a girl who took him at face value, trusting even though he didn’t deserve it.

It was just a matter of time before reality caught up with them. This time reality was named John Winchester; rattling into Kansas in a big black truck ready to flatten the daydream Dean had immersed himself in.

 

 

\--- --- ---

Dean was packed, dressed, and out of Carmen’s apartment before John had even gotten out of his truck, slinging his duffle over his shoulder as he carefully bolted the door behind him. He didn’t meet his father’s eyes on the short drive to the hospital, black behemoth blocking the view of the Impala from the hospital’s glass entry. He didn’t look over his shoulder as they drove away. He didn’t think of all the things he should have said in the note left on a pillow shared with a woman who trusted him for no reason.

 

 

\--- --- ---

Years later, after Dad disappeared and Sam’s chance at normal went up in flames, Dean would lie in the bed at whatever kitschy motel they’d landed at that week. He’d lay on top of the coverlet, hands flat on the scratchy swirl of cowboys or seashells and let the feel of black hair fall over his shoulders, small hands braced on his chest as a girl who’d fucked him in a hospital in Emporia turned into a woman who watched him sleep at night like her only purpose was to feel the next breath drawn into his lungs. He felt her fall apart around him, a flood of wet slickness across his thighs that turned into only his own release when he opened his eyes.

He came with her name on his lips until he’d screwed enough girls across the country to burn the smell of her skin from his memory. And still, when the D’jinn came, when he almost let himself fall into the lure of false promises and mothers that never died in a flash of heat and the answering boil of revenge, still he knew her before his eyes even opened in the dream. And letting go again was almost enough to sink into the sweet release of death.

But there was Sam, and duty and demons still waiting for him to save the world. And that Carmen wasn’t real, no matter how her mouth or her body tasted under his tongue. That was just a fantasy and reality wouldn’t wait around for him to play house again.

 

 

\--- --- ---

**Lawrence, Kansas - 2008**

The hospital was different, no welcoming front atrium glassing in a false sense of serenity before the chaos of the halls within. Dean felt strange, walking into disinfectant laced air when neither he nor Sam had cause to be there. He did have cause, just not a life or death one this time. He heard her before he saw her, bright laughter ringing out around a corner that almost made him turn back to doors that would slide open and swallow him back into the world without a sound. She was happy now, without him, not that he expected to find her pining away, waiting for him. She was happy and he didn’t deserve a second chance. Fate, however, had other ideas.

Carmen turned the corner, head turned back as she walked, colliding into Dean’s chest with a soft cry of surprise. She turned to look at him, smile slipping from her lips as she took in his face and recognition flashed hot and bright across her eyes. Dean tensed, waiting for the slap across his cheek, but it never came. Instead, the girl with tiny hands and a big heart wrapped her arms around his neck, breathing out his name like he hadn’t disappeared into the night like a thief.

His voice was rough, shot through with something he’d deny to the end of his days.

“I want to tell you the truth, before I run out of time.”

The press of her mouth against his felt like the answer to every question his body and heart had been asking for the past six years.

 

 

\--- the end ---

 


End file.
